White
by Smoochy
Summary: A story of one true love. Slash, Holmes/Watson, extreme sadness.


**Title**: White  
**Pairing**: Holmes/Watson, slash  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Warnings**: slash, major character death, extreme sadness  
**Summary**: a story of one true love  
**A**/**N**: Please, forgive me all the sadness and angst but as it turned out, I'm physically incapable of writing a normal NOT emotional-tortured story. Sorry. Now this one – it just had to be written, since I was haunted by it for days. Now I can go back to my other story without any remorse ;D  
Now, please, enjoy and don't forget to review – I need them in order to survive (and also to know if the all the efforts were worth it)

Also, the story is NOT beta'ed since failed me and I'm now unable to sent PM so bear with me until I got it all repaired…

**White**

---

And so Holmes dies.

The excruciating pain is tearing him apart, not letting him think, and somewhere down the line, his heart just stops beating in his chest.

Just like that. He doesn't even have time to define how many shots, exactly, are in his chest.

The last thing he hears, though, is Watson's voice – shocked and disbelieving – calling his name, refusing to believe in what he sees.

Watson never got there in time. When he rushed into the room, it was too late already – Holmes had been shot several times and was bleeding to death on the cold floor, the pain so strong he can't even scream.

The death, at least, is nothing but painful. His heart stops, and the same moment, the pain stops, too.

The changes in his appreciation are the most extraordinary. Though he doesn't feel his body any more, he knows for sure he is material. Time is another problem – he can't guess even approximately how much time passes since he died – a second or a day, or maybe, even, a week. Everything is not what he's used to. His eyes are closed but he doesn't see blackness or whiteness, he doesn't see _anything_, everything's blurred and abstract.

And then, as abruptly as everything that has happened since his death, a voice appears in his ears.

"Please, stand up and follow me"

He can't define who the voice belongs to – a man or a woman, but suddenly he can regain his senses and the control over his body, and it feels like coming out of paralysis. He stands up, feeling perfectly well and light, and this time he sees something.

Everything around is white. He, himself, is standing on nothing, just pure whiteness and that's all he can see.

Except for a woman who stands some distance away from him (he can't tell exactly, since distance here is as stretchable as time), her head tilted a little to the side, watching him closely. She isn't tall, her hair light brown and her face is rather forgettable. He takes a few steps towards her hesitantly, looking down at himself and he sees no blood and no shots on his body. Too late, he realizes he's completely naked.

However, he doesn't care at all.

"Where am I?" He asks her.

"You died" she says instead of answering, staring at him intensely, her voice quiet.

"Yes, strangely enough, I've noticed that" he says, a bit annoyed at her inability to give him a straight answer. She smiles at him a sad tiny smile.

"You'll understand when it's time" she says, sounding sad and a little pitiful. "Now follow me, if you'll be so kind"

As they walk through the whiteness surrounding them, Holmes thinks of Watson. Right now everything seems surreal and strange, but somewhere deep inside he feels fear. He refuses to think about the content of 'being dead' as it would mean the eternal separation from Watson.

Watson would surely come to Heaven, Holmes thinks absent-mindedly, and I don't even believe in it.

"Do you recognize this place?" the woman asks him suddenly, making him snap out of his trance. Wide-eyed, he looks around, seeing that they are actually standing in the middle of an alley somewhere in the forest, yellow, red and orange leaves flying around, blown by the autumn wind. He hasn't even noticed when they had entered a forest.

Now that he looks around closely, he does recognize the place. He and Watson once got lost here, a year ago, and they had walked around for hours, trying to find the way out. He smirks faintly, as he remembers that he knew the way out all the time, his main aim was to spend some time with Watson alone in such a beautiful place like that.

He tried to go to this place after but he never had enough time, but the place still meant a lot to him.

"Look, the two of you are coming!" the woman says, pointing somewhere to the right and Holmes turns around sharply, squinting in the direction the woman points at. In a moment he sees two men some distance away, one of them limping heavily, and with great amazement he recognizes Watson and himself.

They are walking along the thin alley and Holmes soon hears Watson grumbling. His own face, he notices, wears the expression of slight amusement.

The doctor's grumbling becomes louder as the pair of them walks closer to wear Holmes and the woman stand, obviously having no clue about them being watched.

"God, we pass that tree for_ nth_ time already, Holmes!" the doctor exclaims, fuming. "What do you say to that?!"

"I shall say that you have an extraordinary talent for recognition the trees, my friend" Holmes says, sounding a little dreamy.

"Holmes!"

"Yes, Watson?"

"Stop behaving like that! My leg is hurting me and I wish to get out of here! How did we manage to get lost anyway, with all your fabulous observing methods?"

"My dear Watson, if we walk around some more, we'll definitely find the path which is going to get us out of the forest. We are not lost, we just don't know where we are."

"Holmes!" Watson scowled. "Not knowing where you are _is_ a definition of being lost! Now do something already, my leg is going to kill me!"

"So what do you suppose I should do? You definitely wouldn't be too pleased if I suggested that I should carry you. Besides, you're a bigger man than myself…"

"Well, at least show some sign of worry!" Watson finally snaps, pointing an accusing finger at his friend. "I am terribly annoyed at your absolute lack of emotion! I feel like I am talking with a wall, sometimes!"

"I'm sorry, do you suggest that I should _weep_ over our current situation?" Holmes ventures, still sounding far too amused for Watson's like.

"I guess yes, I do! It would be something! At least I wouldn't feel as if my friend is an emotionless sociopath! Gladstone is more emotional than you are!"

"I surely do experience all kinds of emotions, Watson" Holmes says, now obviously annoyed with the doctor. "I just prefer not showing them. According to you I'm some kind of brain without heart. Which _I'm not_"

But Watson is already brought to boil and he seems to argue just for the sake of arguing.

"_Really?_ Then pray tell me, when was the last time you cried? Alright, forget crying, it's clearly too much to ask of you, but when did you last _smile_? Not smirked, not grinned, but _smiled?!_ When did you last tell me how you felt?"

"You really want to know how I feel?" Holmes says very quietly, almost hisses and Watson takes a small step back. They keep silence for almost a minute, staring at each other, the tension between them could be cut with a knife, and then, in one swift movement, Holmes lunges forward and brings his lips to Watson's.

Now when Holmes has a better view of Watson and himself, he can watch closely Watson's shocked bemused expression. He sees the younger version of himself close his eyes, sucking on Watson's bottom lip, running his tongue over it, asking the permission to let himself into the Watson's mouth and the doctor moans lowly, barely audible, and opens his mouth.

The kiss lasts for about a ten seconds actually when Watson abruptly pulls back. His lips are red and glittering, Holmes' are no different.

"I- I can't do that, Holmes… I… God, I can't. You know I can't" Watson says so shakily, it sounds almost like a sob. There's so much pain in his eyes that both versions of Holmes can't stand it. "I'm married."

"I know. But I also know it won't last long, my friend, even if you don't believe me. So I will wait. No matter how long it will take me, but I will wait. A month, a year, a I will be there, waiting for you"

Holmes watches the pair, remembering this conversation, a year ago, in a forest where he kissed Watson for the first and the very last time in his life, and the realization downs on him, painful and heartbreaking, that he will _never_ do that again.

He will never look at Watson in the eyes, he will never speak to him again, he will never kiss him or embrace him or simply touch him, because he is _dead_ now.

Something wet runs down his cheeks and Holmes realizes he's crying. He looks helplessly at the woman, standing beside him, who has been silent all the time during the conversation.

"See, you are weeping" she says, emotionlessly. "You had to actually die, to finally let yourself do it. Too bad it'd too late now"

"Who are you?!" he demands, his voice shaky and each word hurts him as it leaves his mouth.

"I have a lot of names. Most of them you won't ever understand. But you can call me Lucy."

He looks at her for a while, hating her with every fiber of his soul, wishing to be away from her and this place, wishing to be alive.

Suddenly he notices that he's no more in the forest, but in that place where only whiteness is around. His hands shake, his chest rise and fall unsteadily, and he wipes away the tears from his eyes.

"I just wanted to show you that you can be at any place you like, you just need to imagine it clearly. Any moment from your past."

"And how long shall I have to be here?" He asks this time more calmly.

"Here?" she repeats, looking around "Forever"

The simple word falls like a stone inside of him, taking his heart down, making his insides twist. For a moment, he's sure he forgets how to breathe.

He immediately realizes, he doesn't need to breathe in this place.

"This is where you belong from now on" she continues indifferently. "But you can still watch the living ones"

"Can I?" he says bitterly, still hoping against hope that this is all some horrible dream and he'll soon wake up on the Baker street.

"Yes. Just think of the one you want to be with now and concentrate."

Without hesitation, Holmes imagines Watson's face before his eyes. His eyes, his lips, his moustache, his expression. The next thing he knows, he's standing in the middle of the cemetery, the sky is dark-grey, almost black, and it's raining very hard. He looks around, but there are no people there, only frightening looking crosses all around.

And then, as the sound of a thunder deafens him for a moment, he spots the lone figure, hunched over the newly made grave, sitting on his knees. Without any doubt, Holmes knows who the person is.

He immediately runs over to his friend, happiness fills him as he sees the doctor, and he forgets the circumstances under which both of them are here, he only wants to touch Watson, to hug him, to tell him that everything is going to be alright.

He reaches out his hand, almost touching the soaked material of Watson's coat, when Lucy's voice sounds from behind his back "You are not allowed to touch. Or everything will disappear"

Holmes twitches his hand back quickly, afraid of the prospect to be left in the whiteness again, without his Watson, so he just watches his friend, sitting on the ground, seemingly oblivious to the world around him. It's not obvious in the rain, but looking closer, Holmes sees that Watson's sobbing, his eyes red and swollen and his shoulders begin to shake.

"_Holmes, Holmes, Holmes, Holmesholmesholmes…_" Watson repeats like a mantra, over and over again "_Holmes, oh God, please, Holmes, Holmes…" _

"_Watson_" Holmes whispers back, tears rolling down his face, and he wishes nothing more than to be able to touch his friend "_Watson"_

Watson suddenly lifts his head, as if he has actually heard Holmes, and for a moment the detective believes that Watson will see him now, but he doesn't and his head falls back helplessly, almost hitting the wet ground.

"Please" Holmes breathes out, addressing Lucy, "_Please_, I don't want to see it, _please…"_

In a second he's in the white place, and he waits for his eyes to adjust to the light.

"How much time passed since I died?" he finally croaks.

"In the living world it's been a month" Lucy answers him, tilting her head to the side. "Here, you don't feel the time. You can just lie down and drift into some sort of trance and when you come out of it – decades have passed in another world. But you can always watch the moments you missed."

And Holmes cries.

---

---

Holmes doesn't know how long he's been here already, but for Watson it has been four years. Three years of guilt, grief, anger and excruciating pain. Holmes has seen enough to know that all these years Watson has been blaming himself for his death, thinking of what it would be like if he showed up earlier or went with Holmes from the beginning.

Watson has become an alcoholic eventually. At first he completely buried himself in work, then, when it didn't help, he began to go to the pub more and more often. Mary left him, or more exactly, he told her to leave. She went abroad and changed her name so she wouldn't be associated with her former husband. Watson moved back to the Baker-street, because he had nowhere else to go, and Mrs. Hudson let him out of pure pity.

Holmes has seen it all, every piece of it, every moment of Watson's massive breakdown and he could do _nothing_ about it, and that fact still tears him apart, kills him over and over again each second he is here in this goddamn white place.

Lucy is always there when he needs to ask her something, but most of the time she doesn't give him an answer, just says something else, completely unrelated to the topic. It used to get him mad at once, but eventually, he got used to it. He is now either watching Watson or spacing out in his trance. There's nothing else to do here.

Today Watson is especially bad, and Holmes is there in the room with him, watching his friend destroy himself.

Watson is drunk. Theirs is a bottle of rum dangling in his hand dangerously, ready to fall from his weak fingers at any moment. He paces the room unsteadily, dripping his tears so hard, Holmes thinks he can hear them gnashing.

Then, all of a sudden, Watson crushes the bottle to the floor, breaking it into smithereens, the rum spilling everywhere.

"The hell have you done, Holmes?!" Watson yells, swinging his arms so hard he nearly loses his balance and falls. "How- how in the hell could you do that to me?! You bastard!" He screams and his eyes water. "You goddamn bastard! I hate you! I hate you!"

It hurts Holmes to see it or hear it, but he can do nothing and somehow he is frozen in his place, unable to move. He simply watches, because that's the only thing he is capable of noe – _watching_.

"How could you die, you bloody git?!" Watson roars, grabbing the vase from the windowsill and smashing it into the wall. The pieces of glass fly everywhere.

Watson grabs the next thing which is unlucky enough to get cross his path. It happens to be a candlestick and soon it follows the vase to the wall, hitting it and bouncing on the floor.

"I hate you! How could you do it to me?! How could you…" He sobs finally, tears running down his cheek, the overwhelming pain in his eyes so clear that Holmes feels it too, his guts twitching and he feels like crying with Watson.

"You said- you promised me…" Watson babbles, his shoulders shaking. "You promised me you would wait… you said you would be here for me…"

The next moment Watson leans on his other leg, shifting, and he accidentally steps on the puddle of rum on the floor and he slips down on the floor, his head hitting the bedside table while he falls, and Holmes can see blood start to drip from Watson's forehead.

His friend falls on the cold floor, his head bleeding, but he still remains conscious, repeating Holmes' name like mantra, tears rolling down his cheeks "_please, be here, Holmes, please, please, be here, I love you, I love you, oh god, be here, pleaseplease"_

He can't watch this anymore. Holmes turns around and immediately he is in the whiteness and Lucy stands beside him, indifferent expression on her face.

"Why are you doing this?!" Holmes yells at her angrily, his own tears stinging his eyes. "Why are torturing him?! Hasn't he had enough already?! He's a wonderful man, he hasn't done anything bad!"

"No, he hasn't" Lucy agrees.

"Then stop it! Stop it now! Isn't there a God or something?!" he demands furiously.

"For there to be a God, you should have believed in him" Lucy says dryly.

"Is there… I there anything _I_ could do? _Anything?_" he pleads, desperately, helplessly, feeling so miserable he had never felt while being alive. He's surprised, though, when he hears her next words.

"There is. Actually, Watson's future is solely up to you."

"What do you mean?" he asks her, both relieved and suspicious, realizing it can't be just that easy.

"You don't know what is Watson's future but I do. There are two ways his life can develop from this day on. The first one is that he lives, drinking and blaming himself for the rest of his life, and then he will die eventually from the liver disease, caused by his drinking. But when he dies, you two will be together again and then, nothing will ever separate you again."

"Really?" Holmes says, disbelievingly. "And how long will he live?"

"For you" Lucy says "it will be nothing. You could just close your eyes and when you open them again, he's here and he's yours, _forever_"

Holmes doesn't know what to think. His body is frozen all over, and he feels shivers run down his spine. That's just too perfect, he thinks, too perfect to be true. There must be something else to it. The answer comes immediately.

"And for him?" he finally asks her, his voice hoarse. "How long will he live?"

"Twenty-six years," she says quietly, and Holmes' heart falls.

Twenty-six more years of pain, guilt, grief and self-hating. Twenty-six years of destroying himself and his life. Mrs. Hudson won't take that long and when she dies – where will Watson go? A man in his forties-fifties, a drunkard, unable to do anything, without any money, what will he possible do? How could he survive those twenty-six years?

"And what about the other way?" he asks shakily.

"Two years from now Watson will meet a man named James Samville. He's a nice kind man, he'll help Watson out of his life crisis and eventually, the two of them will fall in love. They will move out of London together, Watson will get back his medical license and will live happily for thirty-three years until he dies in an accident."

"And when he dies" Holmes whispers, afraid to hear the answer, "he will be here for me, right?"

"No, in that case he won't" Lucy deadpans. "You won't be something which he seeks anymore. James Samville will."

So, Holmes thinks, I have a choice – either Watson is his, but he has to survive through twenty-six years of hell, or Watson will live happily ever after with another man, never thinking of Holmes again. His hands shake when he asks:

"Why do I have to decide?"

"Who else will?" Lucy shrugs. "He's your friend, you'll make the right decision. Besides, you don't have to decide right now, there's no time in here, as you've noticed, so you shouldn't hurry."

Holmes stays silent, his whole body shaking, the new information too much for him. His whole life and even his after-life existence are brought up to this, to this point, this _decision_ he has to make. The life of his best friend, his loved one is up to him now and, obviously, this is the most important case he's ever had.

He has always been an egoist, a thing Watson had always complained about. Now, the egoist in him is clearer than ever.

Absent-mindedly, he wonders why has everything always have to be so complicated. Why people have to suffer for the others' mistakes.

He looks at Lucy and for the first time he sees emotion on her face. Sorrow.

In the heart of hearts, he already knows what he's going to choose.

---

---

He watches Watson and this James person laugh, sitting at the table and drinking coffee, something in the morning newspaper is seemingly very funny for them.

Holmes doesn't want to look what it is.

"John" Samville suddenly says, making Holmes wince at hearing Watson's first name. They never called each other by first names, but with that James Watson doesn't seem to mind. "I've been thinking lately…"

"As if you know how" Holmes mutters darkly, knowing perfectly well that he's being unreasonable. James Sawmville is a rather sharp man, of course far from Holmes' level, but good enough for Watson's taste.

"…What would you say if I suggested that we should buy a dog?" he finishes.

Something dark flickers over Watson's face.

"I don't know, James" Watson replies hesitantly. "I mean, I don't know if I want another dog after Gladstone"

"But Gladstone died almost eight years ago!"

"Yes, but we bought it together with -" He stops abruptly, but the unsaid name is clear enough.

"Holmes" Samville finishes the sentence for him, sounding sad and a little bitter. "I thought you decided to move on."

"I did, yes, but" Watson sighs deeply. "I'm not sure if I'm ready for that."

Samville doesn't say anything to that, instead he leans forward over the table and kisses Watson on the lips. From his corner of the room, Holmes' heart clenches.

They kiss for about a minute, and when they pull apart, Watson's lips are red and glittering just like all those years back when Holmes kissed him in the alley in the middle of forest, and Holmes feels a lump in his throat.

Then Watson smiles and says "I think, I shall consider buying a dog"

Samville laughs and kisses him again, his hand going up to brush Watson's cheek, and Holmes think of all these things like that – kissing, hugging, sharing bed together, all these things he never got chance to try, though he so wanted to.

Enough, he tells himself firmly, and he's in the white place at once. Enough of that, or he'll end up in tears all over again and he doesn't need that. Tears won't help or change anything.

Nothing will.

There's no going back, Holmes knows, and all he has now is the ability to get back to that forest and rewatch his conversation with Watson over and over again, before he ends up in the whiteness.

At least Watson is happy, he keeps reminding himself, when he's all alone in a Hell, he doomed himself for.

_Hell_. Funnily enough that while people are alive they all believe and associate Hell with fire and scream and red.

Who would have thought it would turn out to be white.

---

Please, review, I'll use them to wipe away all the tears the story caused :)


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